Letter 50: Domnio, a Roman (called in Letter XLV. the Lot of our time), had written to Jerome to tell him that an ignorant monk had been traducing his books against Jovinian. Jerome, in reply, sharply rebukes the folly of his critic and comments on the want of straightforwardness in his conduct.

From: Jerome, priest and scholar in Bethlehem To: Domnio, Roman layman Date: ~394 AD Context: A monk in Rome has been publicly denouncing Jerome's treatise Against Jovinian; Jerome responds with one of his most entertaining demolitions of an intellectual opponent. Domnio, Your letter is full of two things: affection and complaint. The affection is yours — you are always warning me of danger, always anxious on my behalf, "distrustful and afraid even of safe things." The complaint is about my enemies, who are forever looking for ammunition against me. You write about one man in particular — a monk, apparently, though you would not know it from his habits. He is a street-corner philosopher, a professional gossip who haunts the crossroads and public squares. He is clever only at tearing other people down, and despite the beam in his own eye, he is remarkably eager to extract the mote from his neighbor's [Matthew 7:3-5]. According to you, this man preaches publicly against me, gnawing and ripping and savaging my books against Jovinian with his teeth — figuratively speaking, though I suspect the reality is not far off. And here is the best part: you tell me this homegrown debater — this pillar of the dinner-theater circuit — has never read Aristotle's Categories, never opened the treatise On Interpretation, never worked through the Analytics, never so much as glanced at Cicero's Topics. He moves exclusively in uneducated circles, cultivates the society of impressionable women, and on the basis of this rigorous training ventures to dismantle what he calls my "sophisms" with his own brilliantly constructed syllogisms. How foolish of me, then, to have spent years studying philosophy, thinking it necessary for understanding such matters! What a waste it was to sit at the feet of Gregory of Nazianzus and Didymus, learning the Scriptures! My years of Hebrew study — all for nothing! My daily attention to the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Apostles — a complete loss! Here is a man who has reached perfection without a teacher, a vehicle of divine inspiration, a self-taught genius. He surpasses Cicero in eloquence, Aristotle in logic, Plato in judgment, and Didymus — that man of bronze who wrote more books than most people read — in sheer output. Give this man a topic and he is ready, like Carneades, to argue either side. The legal profession has suffered a great loss: had he gone to the bar instead of the cloister, no inheritance case would have gone unsettled. But he felt a higher calling — to sit in judgment on other people's books, books he cannot understand because he lacks the training to read them. And what, exactly, is his case against me? He claims I condemned marriage. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe what I wrote was that virginity is superior to marriage — which is what Paul said, what Christ said, and what the entire church teaches. If this man disagrees, he should write his own books and argue his own case. I promise to read them. If they are any good, I will say so. If they are bad, I will say that too — clearly enough that even he will understand. But I suspect he will not write. Writing requires effort, learning, and the willingness to be judged by the same standard you apply to others. It is far easier to stand on a street corner and shout. Let me close with this: if he does write, he will feel the point of my pen. Epicurus and Aristippus will not help him then. The swineherd's pigs will not come grunting to his rescue. "I too," as Turnus says, "can throw a spear that finds its mark, and when I strike, blood follows from the wound." But if he refuses to write — if he thinks shouting is as effective as argument — then let him hear this much, even across the distance between us: I do not condemn marriage. I do not condemn wedlock. In fact, I would encourage every man who is afraid to sleep alone at night to take a wife immediately.

To Domnio Domnio, a Roman (called in Letter XLV. the Lot of our time), had written to Jerome to tell him that an ignorant monk had been traducing his books against Jovinian. Jerome, in reply, sharply rebukes the folly of his critic and comments on the want of straightforwardness in his conduct. He concludes the letter with an emphatic restatement of his original position. Written in 394 A.D. 1. Your letter is full at once of affection and of complaining. The affection is your own, which prompts you unceasingly to warn me of impending danger, and which makes you on my behalf Of safest things distrustful and afraid. The complaining is of those who have no love for me, and seek an occasion against me in my sins. They speak against their brother, they slander their own mother's son. You write to me of these — nay, of one in particular — a lounger who is to be seen in the streets, at crossings, and in public places; a monk who is a noisy news-monger, clever only in detraction, and eager, in spite of the beam in his own eye, to remove the mote in his neighbor's. Matthew 7:3-5 And you tell me that he preaches publicly against me, gnawing, rending, and tearing asunder with his fangs the books that I have written against Jovinian. You inform me, moreover, that this home-grown dialectician, this mainstay of the Plautine company, has read neither the Categories of Aristotle nor his treatise On Interpretation, nor his Analytics, nor yet the Topics of Cicero, but that, moving as he does only in uneducated circles, and frequenting no society but that of weak women, he ventures to construct illogical syllogisms and to unravel by subtle arguments what he is pleased to call my sophisms. How foolish I have been to suppose that without philosophy there can be no knowledge of these subjects; and to account it a more important part of composition to erase than to write! In vain have I perused the commentaries of Alexander; to no purpose has a skilled teacher used the Introduction of Porphyry to instruct me in logic; and — to make light of human learning — I have gained nothing at all by having Gregory of Nazianzum and Didymus as my catechists in the Holy Scriptures. My acquisition of Hebrew has been wasted labor; and so also has been the daily study which from my youth I have bestowed upon the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostles. 2. Here we have a man who has reached perfection without a teacher, so as to be a vehicle of the spirit and a self-taught genius. He surpasses Cicero in eloquence, Aristotle in argument, Plato in discretion, Aristarchus in learning, Didymus, that man of brass, in the number of his books; and not only Didymus, but all the writers of his time in his knowledge of the Scriptures. It is reported that you have only to give him a theme and he is always ready — like Carneades — to argue on this side or on that, for justice or against it. The world escaped a great danger, and civil actions and suits concerning succession were saved from a yawning gulf on the day when, despising the bar, he transferred himself to the Church. For, had he been unwilling, who could ever have been proved innocent? And, if he once began to reckon the points of the case upon his fingers, and to spread his syllogistic nets, what criminal would his pleading have failed to save? Had he but stamped his foot, or fixed his eyes, or knitted his brow, or moved his hand, or twirled his beard, he would at once have thrown dust in the eyes of the jury. No wonder that such a complete Latinist and so profound a master of eloquence overcomes poor me, who — as I have been some time away (from Rome), and without opportunities for speaking Latin — am half a Greek if not altogether a barbarian. No wonder, I say, that he overcomes me when his eloquence has crushed Jovinian in person. Good Jesus! What! even Jovinian that great and clever man! So clever, indeed, that no one can understand his writings, and that when he sings it is only for himself — and for the muses! 3. Pray, my dear father, warn this man not to hold language contrary to his profession, and not to undo with his words the chastity which he professes by his garb. Whether he elects to be a virgin or a married celibate — and the choice must rest with himself — he must not compare wives with virgins, for that would be to have striven in vain against Jovinian's eloquence. He likes, I am told, to visit the cells of widows and virgins, and to lecture them with his brows knit on sacred literature. What is it that he teaches these poor women in the privacy of their own chambers? Is it to feel assured that virgins are no better than wives? Is it to make the most of the flower of their age, to eat and drink, to frequent the baths, to live in luxury, and not to disdain the use of perfumes? Or does he preach to them chastity, fasting, and neglect of their persons? No doubt the precepts that he inculcates are full of virtue. But if so, let him admit publicly what he says privately. Or, if his private teaching is the same as his public, he should keep aloof altogether from the society of girls. He is a young man — a monk, and in his own eyes an eloquent one (do not pearls fall from his lips, and are not his elegant phrases sprinkled with comic salt and humor?)— I am surprised, therefore, that he can without a blush frequent noblemen's houses, pay constant visits to married ladies, make our religion a subject of contention, distort the faith of Christ by misapplying words, and — in addition to all this — detract from one who is his brother in the Lord. He may, however, have supposed me to be in error (for in many things we offend all, and if any man offend not in word he is a perfect man James 3:2). In that case he should have written to convict me or to question me, the course taken by Pammachius, a man of high attainments and position. To this latter I defended myself as best I could, and in a lengthy letter explained the exact sense of my words. He might at least have copied the diffidence which led you to extract and arrange such passages as seemed to give offense; asking me for corrections or explanations, and not supposing me so mad that in one and the same book I should write for marriage and against it. 4. Let him spare himself, let him spare me, let him spare the Christian name. Let him realize his position as a monk, not by talking and arguing, but by holding his peace and sitting still. Let him read the words of Jeremiah: It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sits alone and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him. Lamentations 3:27-28 Or if he has really the right to apply the censor's rod to all writers, and fancies himself a man of learning because he alone understands Jovinian (you know the proverb: Balbus best knows what Balbus means); yet, as Atilius reminds us, we are not all writers. Jovinian himself — an unlettered man of letters if ever there was one — will with most justice proclaim the fact to him. That the bishops condemn me, he says, is not reason but treason. I want no answers from nobodies, who, while they have authority to put me down, have not the wit to teach me. Let one write against me who has a tongue that I can understand, and whom to vanquish will be to vanquish all. 'I know full well: believe me, I have felt The hero's force when rising o'er his shield He hurls his whizzing spear.' He is strong in argument, intricate and tenacious, one to fight with his head down. Often has he cried out against me in the streets from late one night till early the next. He is a well-built man, and his thews are those of an athlete. Secretly I believe him to be a follower of my teaching. He never blushes or stops to weigh his words: his only aim is to speak as loud as possible. So famous is he for his eloquence that his sayings are held up as models to our curly-headed youngsters. How often, when I have met him at meetings, has he aroused my wrath and put me into a passion! How often has he spat upon me, and then departed spat upon! But these are vulgar methods, and any of my followers can use them. I appeal to books, to those memorials which must be handed down to posterity. Let us speak by our writings, that the silent reader may judge between us; and that, as I have a flock of disciples, he may have one also — flatterers and parasites worthy of the Gnatho and Phormio who is their master. 5. It is no difficult matter, my dear Domnio, to chatter at street corners or in apothecaries' shops and to pass judgment on the world. So-and-so has made a good speech, so-and-so a bad one; this man knows the Scriptures, that one is crazy; this man talks glibly, that never says a word at all. But who considers him worthy thus to judge every one? To make an outcry against a man in every street, and to heap, not definite charges, but vague imputations, on his head, is nothing. Any buffoon or litigiously disposed person can do as much. Let him put forth his hand, put pen to paper, and bestir himself; let him write books and prove in them all he can. Let him give me a chance of replying to his eloquence. I can return bite for bite, if I like; when hurt myself, I can fix my teeth in my opponent. I too have had a liberal education. As Juvenal says, I also have often withdrawn my hand from the ferule. Of me, too, it may be said in the words of Horace, Flee from him; he has hay on his horn. But I prefer to be a disciple of Him who says, I gave my back to the smiters...I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Isaiah 50:6 When He was reviled He reviled not again. 1 Peter 2:23 After the buffeting, the cross, the scourge, the blasphemies, at the very last He prayed for His crucifiers, saying, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34 I, too, pardon the error of a brother. He has been deceived, I feel sure, by the art of the devil. Among the women he was held clever and eloquent; but, when my poor writings reached Rome, dreading me as a rival, he tried to rob me of my laurels. No man on earth, he resolved, should please his eloquent self, unless such as commanded respect rather than sought it, and showed themselves men to be feared more than favored. A man of consummate address, he desired, like an old soldier, with one stroke of the sword to strike down both his enemies, and to make clear to every one that, whatever view he might take, Scripture was always with him. Well, he must condescend to send me his account of the matter, and to correct my indiscreet language, not by censure but by instruction. If he tries to do this, he will find that what seems forcible on a lounge is not equally forcible in court; and that it is one thing to discuss the doctrines of the divine law amid the spindles and work-baskets of girls and another to argue concerning them among men of education. As it is, without hesitation or shame, he raises again and again the noisy shout, Jerome condemns marriage, and, while he constantly moves among women with child, crying infants, and marriage-beds, he suppresses the words of the apostle just to cover me — poor me — with odium. However, when he comes by and by to write books and to grapple with me at close quarters, then he will feel it, then he will stick fast; Epicurus and Aristippus will not be near him then; the swineherds will not come to his aid; the prolific sow will not so much as grunt. For I also may say, with Turnus: Father, I too can launch a forceful spear, And when I strike blood follows from the wound. But if he refuses to write, and fancies that abuse is as effective as criticism, then, in spite of all the lands and seas and peoples which lie between us, he must hear at least the echo of my cry, I do not condemn marriage, I do not condemn wedlock. Indeed — and this I say to make my meaning quite clear to him — I should like every one to take a wife who, because they get frightened in the night, cannot manage to sleep alone. About this page Source. Translated by W.H. Fremantle, G. Lewis and W.G. Martley. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 6. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1893.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001050.htm>. Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. 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